I really do like the concept of the guy being transferred to a fantasy world either through means of a summoning or through reincarnation. In this case Kazuma died a hilarious comedic death and is given the option of bringing any “broken weapon or ability” with him. Yet, out of all of the cards that were dealt, he picked the lowest card of the deck, the joker, Aqua, the most useless card that could be dealt. Haha.

What makes this a good book is how the author conveys both the plot and how he/she depicts the characters in the plot. KonoSuba is classed as a comedy but I feel this isn’t meant to be a comedy, it’s a well thought out story that includes very funny moments. The pace and language is very simple and the plot flows smoothly without over-articulating the writing. I’m not a very good reader and I struggle to take in the information but with KonoSuba I found the books very easy to read.

A good foundation for a story is always important but having good characters is equally as important. I’m happy to say that the characters in this story are amazing, especially the main crew, Kazuma and his party.

Kazuma has no talent and therefore became your average adventurer and forms a party with three high-class adventurers, the Arch Priest Aqua, the Arch Wizard, Megumin, and the Crusader, Darkness. The ladies being as strong as they are should be using Kazuma as their bag carrier, yet, the beautiful catch of this party is that they’re all completely useless in their own quirky ways. Aqua is a Diva, Megumin can only use explosion magic once before she faints and Darkness is a masochist who can’t even hit the simplest of objects. It’s no surprise that Kazuma became leader by default, look what happened when he traded places with Dust. Haha.

The ultimate plot of this over-powered game is for the bog standard Hero, Kazuma, to eliminate the Demon King once and for all. He needs to beat him, or her (it could be a lady) to achieve his unyielding desire and to return Aqua to the Heavens. The current goal is to scrape through each day whilst eliminating all the Demon Generals in the process.

Speaking of Demon Generals, the villains are just as wonderful as the main cast. You have this tough Dullahan, Beldia, who is extremely intimidating when confronting the town of Axel but gets bewildered and rolls around in agony that wouldn’t befit the role of a villain. The other Demon General Wiz has a very unique relationship with Aqua and the polar opposites between them are high and hilarious for unusual reasons. It’s as Kazuma said, they ought to switch places for Goddess and Lich.

The underlying feature that I found beautiful is the relationship between Kazuma and his three party members. They banter a lot and you often see their love and hate relationship, mostly between Kazuma and Aqua, but deep down I think they all care deeply for each other. Their relationship partly reminds me of the relationship between Del Boy and Rodney from Only Fools and Horses (UK Sitcom).

Throughout the three volumes the feelings and bonds between Kazuma and the three ladies grew and developed in significant ways. If nothing happens romantically between them it wouldn’t ruin the story because they will always be close like family and that is just as important as a romantic relationship. =)

I get the impression that Aqua, Megumin and Darkness care more for Kazuma than his family ever did so it’s not surprising that Kazuma treasures them.

5 out of 5

Post-Review:

The modern niche in anime is the protagonist being transferred from modern day Japan to a fantasy world set in the middle ages, KonoSuba is one of them. It was a Web Novel but as far as I understand Natsume stopped writing the Web Novel when Kadokawa licensed the series and thus the Light Novel series was born, and I’m very thankful it was. =)

I first watched the anime on a whim last year and since then I’ve been watching it, reading it and collecting KonoSuba memorabilia back to back ever since. I’m very happy to say that this is one of my all-time favourite series, both as an anime and as a Manga/Light Novel series. I’m especially thankful for YenPress for licensing the series because now I get to indulge in the KonoSuba literature any time at my leisure.

In light of the surging popularity behind KonoSuba there’s a bunch of Spin-offs released as result. Here’s to hoping that YenPress will license these spin-offs in the near future for I, as one, would gladly support and read with pride more KonoSuba. =)

I wrote my first ever blog three years ago, around this time. Instead of talking about my favourite moments of the year I’m going to commemorate this anniversary by listing my Top Ten Favourite Anime of all time. =D

From 10 to 1 here is my all-time top ten. =)

10. Food Wars!: Shokugeki no Soma (2015)

9. Locodol (2014)

8. No Game No Life (2014)

7. One Punch Man (2015)

6. Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? (2015)

5. Monster Musume (2015)

4. High School DxD (2012)

3. KonoSuba: God’s Blessing on this Wonderful World! (2016)

2. New Game! (2016)

Non Non Biyori (2013)

That’s my list done. What’s your favourite anime? Feel free to comment and we can have a good chat. =D

So far this year there hasn’t been an anime that made me go “wow, that is amazing!” The only exception is KonoSuba and that wasn’t originally on my plan to watch list. I picked it up half way through and it became an instant favourite of mine.

Last year there were plenty for me to look forward to like Non Non Biyori Repeat, Monster Musume, High School DxD BorN, Food Wars!: Shokugeki no Soma, Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?, I could literally go on. Recently I watched the One-Punch Man anime which aired last year and that too became an instant favourite of mine.

I don’t necessarily think that this year’s anime have been bad, it’s just that I found most of them something to watch rather than watching them with excitement.

There has been one anime that I have been eagerly waiting for this year and that is the second season of Food Wars! ‘Food Wars! The Second Plate.’ I’m really excited about that and I’m deliberately avoiding the trailers so I don’t get spoiled. I want to be surprised.

The other anime that has caught my eye from this season is ‘Hybrid x Heart Magic Academy Ataraxia’ or ‘Masou Gakuen H x H.’

I’ve seen one trailer so far and I do think I will really enjoy it. I didn’t watch anymore trailers because I want to be surprised like with the Food Wars! second season. I know nothing about this story but my instincts are telling me that it will have a lot of similar themes to High School DxD.

Either way, I’m happy that I have something else to look forward to. =)

I’m really enjoying my art as of late and I feel as though I’m getting better with each picture that I produce. Recently, I drew a picture of Freya from Danmachi and I’m very happy with how it ended up. It turned out really well because I chose to go back to the basics with my approach to both the colouring and shading styles. I feel that because I went back to the basics, it ended up being much more effective than I anticipated.

Subconsciously I think I put myself under unnecessary pressure to finish my illustrations as quickly as I can and that did take away some of the enjoying from the artistic journey. I took a step back upon my Freya picture and realised this so I told myself to slow down and when the pictures are ready to be complete, they will be complete.

Lately I’ve been doing these artistic projects where I’m drawing characters and sceneries for my family members. I’m enjoying doing projects for other people as it makes a nice change of pace but I don’t think I’m up for doing commissions for people that I don’t know just yet. Will my requested art meet their expectations? Will I be on a time limit? Anxious thoughts entered my head, especially regarding the time issue, so I always end up declining to avoid those self-pressure situations.

I think if I’m reassured that I can take my time with a project than I can probably do it and do it well. So, if anyone has a suggestion or if they have a picture that they’d like to see, just give me a shout. =)

Here is the list of My 8 Current Art in the Works

Claire Harvey(Hundred) – I’m attempting a 3D-ish type of colouring of Claire. Nothing really inspired me to give this a go, I just fancied a go. =D

Mi-Chan(High School Fleet) – I started this picture around the same time as Freya so the colouring and shading style will be more or less the same but with a background. =)

Saitama and Fubuki(One Punch Man) – I’m in the midst of doing a funny but affectionate dating scene between Saitama and Fubuki. I keep on laughing every time I focus on drawing this. XD

Atago(KanColle) – Atago at the beach. Originally I was going to use Galko-Chan in this summer scene but I saw this as an opportunity to draw Atago as I always wanted to draw her. =)

Fubuki(KanColle), Renge(Non Non Biyori) and Stera and Lotte(Atelier Shallie) – I’m doing a crossover to celebrate the fact that I earned my first ever Platinum Trophy on the PlayStation network. =D

Ikumi Mito(Food Wars!) – I really like Ikumi and it’s always fun to draw her, especially when she blushes.

Arnice and Lillysse(Nights of Azure) – I’m really enjoying playing the Nights of Azure game and I suddenly had the urge to draw these two girls. =)

Hotaru(Non Non Biyori), Wiz(KonoSuba) and Kirin(The Asterisk War) – A night scene with the girls and fireflies. I’m very excited about this one. =)

As of late I like the concept when the main characters are transported to a roleplaying/fantasy world from the “real world”.

I literally enjoyed every minute of KonoSuba, especially the characters. At times I felt Kazama and Aqua were hot and cold. One minute I thought they were cool and funny but other times I thought they were rude and self-centred. However, I still found them likable despite their occasional faults and because of their past lives and circumstances, it was always going to be a challenge for them to adapt. In fact, I actually think they’re coping well considering that they were dragged to a new world without warning.

Megumin and Darkness are both nice ladies but they’re both very eccentric in their own ways. You have Megumin, an enthusiastic girl who loves Explosion Magic but knocks herself out whenever she uses it. And you have Darkness, who seems reasonably sensible, but is clearly not trained in sword combat and is a massive masochist. I bet she didn’t hone her skills so she would deliberately and naturally lose against a monster. Haha.

I even liked the supporting cast, Wiz, Luna, Eris and even Verdia, who I thought was hilarious and badass at the same time.

In this roleplaying type of setting I felt that Kazama and his fellow teammates were accommodating each other’s strengths and weaknesses. I feel that it’s refreshing that Kazama isn’t overpowered; rather, he literally worked his way up from the bottom along with Aqua. He uses his whit to beat his opponents rather than power. He’s proven to me that you don’t have to be the stronger fighter to win a fight.

This is party is balanced, yet, unbalanced at the same time. They managed to get the job done in the end but it isn’t without severe repercussions, mostly caused by Aqua. Haha.

What I liked the most about this show was the comedy. I think the comic timing is used brilliantly and very unexpectedly. There were some moments that I thought was going to turn into a sad/cliché scene, yet, something humorous happened and completely undermines the serious moment from before. I thought those moments were absolutely glorious. =D

The battles were very engaging too. I was on the edge of my seat for most of the fights despite the fact that this show isn’t really a battle anime. I was really engaged because I enjoyed the story and humour that went with the action. My favourite moments came when Kazama and co fought Verdia the Dullahan.

This is my favourite anime of the winter season. It went to the point when I kept on re-watching certain episodes over and over again and no doubt in the future I will keep on watching this show over and over again.

I reckon it’s only a matter of time before YenPress licences the manga and light novel as they have license to the Dragon Age publishers and KonoSuba are published by Dragon Age. They recently licensed Grim Reaper and Four Girlfriends and I’m completely over the moon about that. =D